Hello! As ladies with opinions, Liz and Stephanie are here to bring you some opinions on books recently consumed.

These are not really SFF, but they are Australian, so if you like crime and mystery check out the books shortlisted for the Ned Kelly awards, noted here by friend of No Award Fi. The Ned Kellys are the annual crime awards for Australia. There are some excellent reads on that short list.

Liz does not plan her reading in advance, as that’s a level of organisation that’s beyond her. Her recent reading includes:

The Sleeping Partner by Madeleine E Robins, a mystery set in a very-slightly-alternate Regency England. This series has been out of print and hard to find for a while, but has just recently become available in ebook form, with a brand new third novel. I appreciate the way Robins mostly uses her alternate history to increase the presence of women — here, Queen Charlotte becomes George III’s regent, and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin survives the birth of her younger daughter, albeit with a disability. The heroine is not quite Lizzie Bennet with a sword, but she’s delightful nonetheless.

For 88 cents, she bought Operation Mincement by Ben Macintyre. This was picked up because Liz enjoys the interesting corners of history, but it’s also quite funny (if you enjoy shenanigans with corpses and wry observations about imperialism).

Stephanie is currently reading a book that will shortly be included in an article temporarily titled “doing it wrong”. It’s River of Gods by Ian McDonald, which is a gross example of entitlement and cultural appropriation in science fiction and fantasy; in this instance set in and stealing from India.

Liz recently finished Hild by Nicola Griffith, and found it disappointingly dudecentric. Though the heroine is very much bisexual, and has close sexual and platonic relationships with women, her primary attraction is to her illegitimate half-brother, a jerk who badly needs punching in the face. Hild is interesting despite its flaws, but the reader’s hard work is rewarded with gross non-consensual incest (as Hild’s brother isn’t aware they’re related).

No matter how great your post-punk ’80s synthpop homage is, a deliberately incorrect apostrophe in your band name will ensure you’re a one hit wonder. (“Cry”, The Mavis’s)

Thanks to that one montage in Heartbreak High, “Only When I’m Sleeping” will always seem melancholy and ultimately heartbreaking. (Stephanie note: THAT’S BECAUSE IT IS COME ON) (“Only When I’m Sleeping”, Leonardo’s Bride)

It’s possible to have an earworm in 2014 from a song you heard once in 1998 and never managed to track down a copy of, even though the internet assures you the lead singer in that obscure Melbourne group is still totes hot. (“Delicious”, Moler)

It’s wrong, but Liz liked that song about American hegemony and teen angst a bit more after it’s used in Buffy. (“American Shoes”, Motor Ace)

A mixed-race girl from the outer suburbs of Perth can be just as much of a pub bogan as anyone else, a realisation you’ll make the first time you ever hear “Holy Grail” and every time after. (“Holy Grail”, Hunters and Collectors)

Stella One Eleven’s In Your Hands is a perfect work of feminist folk-rock, and absolutely worth spending a decade hunting down on CD after Liz’s Walkman ate the cassette. (Stella One Eleven, In Your Hands)

Even at the age of 13, you know that “When I kiss your mouth, I want to taste it” is a fairly sexual lyric, and no amount of disingenuous denials in radio interviews will change that. (“Mouth”, Merril Bainbridge)

No matter how floppy the hair or sincere the puppydog eyes, one great boyband cover of a disco track doesn’t equal a great album. (CDB, Glide With Me)

Liz had the cassette.

(For a boyband who had one hit and then vanished into obscurity, CDB were surprisingly important to No Award. They are now the official boyband of No Award.)

A song can be really beautiful and insightful and brilliant, and then descend into self-congratulatory grossness because white men think they’re hilarious. (Last 30 seconds of “No Aphrodisiac”, The Whitlams.)

The 20th century sucked, but the year 2000 will bring a dramatic positive change. (And just because it’s the ’90s doesn’t mean we should stop hating Thatcher.) (“Anthem for the Year 2000”, silverchair)

Grunge pop with a woman on vocals and white-person dreads on everyone is less great, but still important in demonstrating that kids from tiny country towns can make a big noise. (“Weir”, Killing Heidi)

If you were an Australian Voyager fan in your teens, Powderfinger’s “My Happiness” may have been a really important song for you. Also, Roma Street Station is no place for a tiny CGI slinky. (“My Happiness”, Powderfinger)

If you’re 11 years old, the “when you make love to me” line in Danni(i?) Minogue’s “This Is It” is pretty racy. I mean, if you’re quite a sheltered 11 year old. (Julian McMahon’s chest hair is also troubling.) (Dannii Minogue, “This Is It”)

If a New Zealander writes a really good theme song for all the wistful, dreamy girls who will in a decade worry if they’re secretly manic pixie dream girls, well, New Zealand is practically Australia, right? (“Sway”, Bic Runga)

Australian musicians can do weird and emotional alt-rock just as well as Tori Amos or Fiona Apple, even if tedious Triple J dudes will laugh at her a few years later. Because they’re JERKS. (No Award does not endorse stalking even if the riffs make it sound totally empowered.) (“Coma”, Max Sharam)

If a brown person writes sings a song about their home in the Torres Strait or just north of Arnhem Land, it will be co-opted by the mainland for generic Australian pride. (Christine Anu, “My Island Home”)

How serious are we about this post? It has its own playlist on Spotify. Think of it as No Award Radio. Or don’t. We’re not the boss of you. Sadly, because of the limitations of American music streaming services, it doesn’t have all the songs discussed here. Yeah, we’re mad, too.

A review of personnel records found that women working at HP applied for a promotion only when they believed they met 100 percent of the qualifications listed for the job. Men were happy to apply when they thought they could meet 60 percent of the job requirements. At HP, and in study after study, the data confirm what we instinctively know. Underqualified and underprepared men don’t think twice about leaning in. Overqualified and overprepared, too many women still hold back. Women feel confident only when they are perfect. Or practically perfect.

Australian ladies are in no way exempt from this terrible phenomenon, and although I’m struggling to find evidence, I suspect they are further constrained by the frustrating Tall Poppy Syndrome.

a quokka – secretly a killer (like all australians)

And non-ladies will also find this relevant; basically any member of any minority group who was told they weren’t as good as a conforming white man. Please ignore the USA tech industry biases in this article and apply its truths to your life as you see relevant. Note that what is considered self-confidence varies across cultures, traditions and upbringing, and can be exacerbated: when this article comments that assertive women are often considered bitches, it fails to note that black women (and men) in North America are considered uppity; that Asian women in Australia are considered dragons; that Aboriginal people are ignored as if they are not even there.

In light of this not new and completely unsurprising information about the role of misogyny in our established societal systems and jerkbrains, No Award and Penguin Productions are compelled to offer a new service: the I Can Burn It Down service.

Services provided in this program:

You ask: No Award, can I do this thing and crush this city to the ground? No Award replies: Indeed, you can do this thing, and lists you why so you can shut up your lying jerkbrain.

Positive reinforcement is aided by motivational sharks, an evil cat, and adorable penguins who will assess your abilities (all excellent) and experience (so great) and confirm for you that you can do this thing.

Reassessment of negative feedback from jerkface other parties, and confirmation that you can indeed burn it down.

This service was designed with Australians in mind, and please note that it is opt-in for all self identifying ladies, gender non-specifics, those who were forced to be ladies against their actual identity, and any others who were raised whilst being told they weren’t as good as gender-conforming white men and currently feel a need for this service.

The management recognises that sometimes it will not be available to provide this service, as all service operators are currently located in Melbourne, Australia. To that end, we also provide a handy toolbox below.

Techniques for those momentarily lacking the confidence to burn it down:

Armour yourself for battle. Stephanie likes to do this wearing wings and bright pink clothes, but this is not suitable for all world-destroying tasks.

Confirm it for yourself: Can I do 50% of this thing; if I were marked on my performance for this thing, would I earn a passing grade? If the answer is yes, then do the thing.

Is your jerk brain telling you no? Literally do the thing anyway.

Say this out loud: I contain multitudes. They will swarm out and subdue my enemies if I do not get my way.

Don’t take responsibility for things outside of your control. You are not a godling, despite your multitudes.

When someone tells you you can’t do the thing, put your feet firmly on the ground, cross your arms, and assert your dominance through an eyebrow raise.

Do not give ground.

On public transport, always establish your dominance, especially against those who consume more spaces than allotted. If you push back against their lavaballing, they will give way in surprise. Take advantage of this, and the endorphins of success it provides, to push harder. Hold onto this feeling when you disembark the tram.

Accept negative feedback, but only after running it through a trusted third party. You cannot have any of the best friends associated with No Award, but they are very good at their jobs and we recommend someone with similar skills.

ALWAYS ask someone society says is better than you to move their bag from the train seat. (Please don’t put your bag on the seat, anyone else, because I don’t want to have to consume you with my multitudes)

If you have something to say, say it.

Remember that your failures belong to society. Blame it accordingly.

Do not say sorry (except if you run over a cat. Then, maybe. MAYBE).

Always check the emails you write and remove excess apologies. Do not feel regret.

Do not run over a cat.

wombat – definitely a killer

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No Award community are encouraged to aid this No Award service by also offering useful feedback. White cis men are allowed in the comments but will be gazed upon with non-yielding eyes.

Here at No Award, there are two things we know for sure about our dystopic climate change future: It is brown; and we will be eating cockroaches.

In related news, you know that No Award went to the movies this week! I really, really liked Snowpiercer (Liz and I disagreed on how great Pacific Rim was, as well). But this is not that joyful shrieking as I clapped my hands. This is a look at the use of non-white bodies and Western imperialism and moral attitudes in our dystopic future. This analysis accepts the basic premise of Snowpiercer: that is, that all of humanity remaining exists on a high speed train that hasn’t stopped in 17 years. There are no questions about track repairs, wear and tear on the outside of the train, and the supply of animal carcasses. Maybe later.

The movie ends with two brown babies leaving to start the world again. Everyone else seems dead. This is correct. End of the world boils down to an Asian girl and a brown boy, protected at the end by an Asian father and a white man. I dig it.

Racially, there are few other things I dig.

This revolution is peppered with brown faces but ultimately led by white ones, from one end of the train to the other. It starts with the disobedience of a white dude, who is oppressed by a white lady (using her tools of white and not-white). It is controlled by two white men, paternalistic imperialists who do what they do for the good of everyone else, never mind what anyone else has to say. It’s led by the man-pain of a white man, and takes a long pause when we learn what we already knew (he knows what babies taste like, man, because being 17 when the world froze he was probably privileged and shielded).

As Liz mentioned, Curtis (the beautiful Chris Evans) turns his judgey face on those he is leading when he discovers that protein bars are made from cockroaches. He decides they don’t need to know. Never mind that people (not white people) willingly eat cockroaches now, before our dystopic future has arrived. Never mind that he makes the decision on their behalf, like a patronising jerk. Never mind that in 17 years on a train, they’ve probably already realised. But this is a story about a white man, at its core, and the decisions white men make on the behalf of everyone they think is less than them (every one).

It’s uncool that we had to watch brown bodies being used for everything; literally, brown bodies. Grey, played by Luke Pasqualino, had to use his shirtless brown body to communicate because he was unable to speak. I enjoy a brown man as much as the next person (probably more, being a brown bisexual, and I have loved Luke Pasqualino since he was in the Borgias and fully clothed), but this is hugely problematic. Brown bodies, especially male brown bodies, have long been used in Western media as either items of lust and hyper-sexuality or as items of abuse (including in slavery). The hairless, shirtless brown man who can’t speak in English has often been shorthand for the exotic, noble savage, and Grey, following Gillam’s instructions, does nothing but support that stereotype: the brown person here for the story of the white person.

Like Elysium, the white-skied brown-earthed saved by the localised/nativised white man story starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster and fewer brown people than I would have liked, the segregation of the brown tail end and the white-ish front end makes sense within the world. (I was, incidentally, so happy to see some brown children in the school car, though we really only saw that one smart-ass white girl). That the faces of control and violence are all white makes sense. That the faces of rigour and sticking to the rules are Asian are an uncomfortable stereotype of the model minority and super racist.

That the brown players are here for the consumption of the white person is confirmed by the costuming process, which you can read about in this interview. It is, at its essence, look at all the exotic clothes I put on all these white bodies. They’re so multi-ethnic! And they are. But, as always, with a white face, who takes what they can see and find but ultimately doesn’t understand what we’re here to do or what these stolen tools are for.

And in the end, Snowpiercer merely confirms everything we already knew. A cis white man cannot be trusted to smash the system; do not trust the white dudes with the revolution (cf Ms Hayley Inch in a text this morning). The system is always supported by brown bodies – literally, in the case of Grey’s very attractive yet constantly bare torso. And our climate dystopia is coming.

End note: I am interested in thoughts re: the ending, where Tanya, the African-American mother, has been replaced by Yona, holding Timmy’s hand as they walk (BARE-HANDED) into the snow. Whilst two brown babies is correct, there are thoughts around racial conceptions of motherhood that I don’t feel able to talk to but are worth discussing.